Simple Guides to Fraud Prevention, Scams and Cybercrime

Over the past couple of months, scammers have been taking advantage of the Coronavirus pandemic in order to steal personal information and bank details from individuals and companies.

At a time where we are relying on technology more than ever in order to work from home, shop and stay in contact with family and friends, fraudsters are targeting people with online scams which means cyber security is more important than ever.

A majority of these scams are coming in the form of phishing emails, texts and phone calls where scammers are impersonating representatives from the World Health Organisation (WHO) or the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in order to trick people into handing over sensitive data. They may claim to have special medical advice, a cure, or testing kits which will be sent to you in exchange for payment. Or they may claim to be from HMRC and say that you’re entitled to a payment or tax refund from the Government as part of the COVID-19 response plan and they require your personal information and bank details.

Other scams include fake advertisements for COVID-19 testing kits, miracle cures or PPE and more recently scammers have been hacking into private video conferences to try and steal information.

How to protect yourself from Coronavirus related scams and what to do if you have fallen victim and lost money

SMS Fraud: Smishing is the text message version of phishing (SMS + Phishing = Smishing).

Fraudsters send out thousands of text messages at a time in an attempt to gain their victims’ personal and banking information. The texts will appear to come from your bank, or another well-known company or organisation. Some scam messages are even sophisticated enough to appear in a thread already held between yourself and your genuine bank.

Similar to a phishing email, the fraudster will try to make you perform some kind of action. They may claim that your online banking account has had a failed log-in attempt, or they may pretend to be from another brand and claim to have unbeatable, once-in-a-lifetime deals.

They will provide a link that, once clicked, will take you to a malicious website which has been designed by the fraudster to capture your personal and/or banking details.  

Cold Calls: Cold calls are one of the biggest and most common scams out there and they have been operating for years.

A fraudster will phone you out of the blue and claim to be from your bank or another well-known company or organisation (often broadband providers or computer services). They will tell you that you need to confirm some bank details with them, or they will be offering you once-in-a-lifetime deals or investment opportunities. They may also claim that something is wrong with your computer or internet connection and they require access to your device to fix the problem.

This is an attempt to get you to hand over your personal and/or banking information so they can use it for further crimes such as identity theft.

There are multiple types of malware that can be used by fraudsters to infect your electronic devices. Malware is often sent to victims in the form of phishing emails, smishing messages or through social media and malicious websites.

These are some of the different types of malware:

Viruses: A virus is a kind of software that self-replicates. If it is not gotten rid of quickly, it will eventually grow so big that it will slow down and inevitably cripple your device and destroy or alter any data you have held on it.

Spyware: Spyware can be one of the most dangerous types of malware as it can be virtually undetectable by the user. The software will essentially ‘spy’ on the user and their activities on the device which means it can log what you type when you log-in to online accounts, such as your banking account. A ‘keylogger’ records what is typed and sends it back to the fraudster.

Ransomware: Ransomware is becoming one of the biggest and most notorious types of malware as it has been used to infect hundreds of thousands of systems at the same time, disrupting whole organisations. This types of malware is able to completely lock down systems, making them completely inaccessible.

Most phishing, smishing, cold calls and social media scams are attempts to gain your personal and/or banking information so the fraudster is able to steal your identity. Once they have your information, there is a huge number of different things they can do with it.

Most commonly, it is likely to be a type of financial fraud, e.g. credit or bank card fraud, benefit or tax rebate fraud, or taking out a form of credit in your name. They can also use the information to commit other crimes in your name, such as entering or leaving a country illegally, smuggling drugs and other illegal products, or laundering money.

Once this has been done, it can cause detrimental consequences for the victim.

If a loan has been taken out in your name and hasn’t been paid back, it is likely you will find yourself being liable for the debt and then making it more difficult for you to obtain credit in the future (unless it was proven that you didn’t obtain the credit in the first place). If a crime has committed in your name, you may find yourself as part of a criminal investigation and difficult to prove yourself innocent.

An advance fee scam (or loan fee scam) is when a fraudster makes contact with you, either through phishing, smishing, cold calls or social media, and will offer you a loan or another financial product.

People who have difficulty obtaining credit, or have made several loan applications with no success are most likely to fall for an advance fee scam.

The fraudster will offer you loan with unbeatable rates and express that you do not need a good credit record in order to tempt people into take the offer. When you start the ‘application process’ they will request that you pay an upfront fee in order to cover set up costs, to be used as insurance or to be used as a deposit.

After you have paid the fee, the loan will never materialise and the fraudster will disappear with your money, leaving themselves completely untraceable.

Remote access scammers will try to convince you that there has been a problem with your computer or internet and you need to give them access to the device, or purchase some software to fix the problem.

This is most commonly performed via cold calling and the scammer will claim they are from a large telecommunications or computer company. They will tell you that your computer has been sending them error messages which means there is a virus on the computer or your internet has been hacked.

They will convince you to give them access to your computer so they can see the screen you are using so they can ‘fix the problem’. Then they will ask you to log-in to accounts so they can see the details you are entering, or they will ask for you bank details over the phone in order to purchase something to fix it.